Bengali language: Encyclopedia II - Bengali language - History

Bengali language - History

Until the 18th century, Bangla did not have a well-documented grammar. Bangla existed as a collection of thousands of dialects. The first written Bangla grammar, Vocabolario em idioma Bengalla, e Portuguez dividido em duas partes, was written by Manoel da Assumpcam, a Portuguese missionary. Assumpcam wrote this grammar between 1734 and 1742 while he was serving in Bhawal. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, is credited as being the first to write a Bangla grammar using Bangla texts and letters for illustration: A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778). Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great Bengali Reformer, also published a book "Grammar of the Bengali Language" in 1832.

Bengali language - The Fight for Bangla

Between the years of 1947 and 1971, what is now known as Bangladesh was part of Pakistan (and first known as East Bengal and later East Pakistan). During this period, the Bangla language became the focus and foundation of the national identity of the Bengali people, leading ultimately to the creation of the sovereign state of Bangladesh.

Around 1950-52, the emerging middle class of East Bengal underwent an uprising known later as the Bhasha Andolon, or Language Movement. Bengalis (then East Pakistanis) were initially agitated by a decision by the central Pakistani government to establish Urdu as the sole national language for all of Pakistan, despite the fact that Urdu was only a minority language spoken by the supposed elite class of what was then West Pakistan. At the peak of resentment, on February 21, 1952, Bengali students (mainly of Dhaka Medical College and University of Dhaka) and activists walked into military and police fire and were killed in demand of the recognition and establishment of the Bangla language - spoken by the majority of the then-Pakistani population - as one of the, if not the sole, national language of erstwhile Pakistan. The day is revered in modern-day Bangladesh and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in West Bengal as the Language Martyrs' Day. UNESCO decided to observe 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The UNESCO General Conference took a decision to that took effect on 17 November 1999 when it unanimously adopted a draft resolution submitted by Bangladesh and co-sponsored and supported by 28 other countries.

In 1961, the Government of Assam passed a legislature making the usage of Assamese language compulsary. The legislature resulted in widespread protest across Assam. In one such incident, 11 people were killed due to police firing in Silchar in southern Assam. Coming under intense pressure, the Government withdrew the legislature.^[3]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki